1937 Packard One Twenty Pickup

The Packard marque built a reputation for fine luxury cars during their illustrious career. Along with elegant and stately vehicles, they also built robust heavy trucks. Truck production on East Grand Boulevard ended in 1923, but the Packard chassis still proved to be a suitable and sturdy platform to be adapted for practical purposes. Packard service cars and wreckers were fairly common in the 1920s and 1930s. Packard dealers would sometimes use these trucks as a means of advertising the strength of the cars that they sold.

This Packard Pickup rests on the 138-inch wheelbase 138D One Twenty chassis. It originally wore a factory touring limousine bodywork. The body was later truncated aft of the front doors and the back of a compatible pickup cab was grafted on. An original box from another period truck of comparable size was carefully selected and added, and it features a ribbed steel floor. The exterior has been painted black with red pinstripe and there are dual side-mounted spares, white whitewall tires, and an original Packard trunk, which has been integrated into the cargo bed. On top of the truck is an original illuminated Packard Service Car sign. Inside, there is black leather upholstery, a wood-grained instrument panel, a radio, a clock, and a cigarette lighter.

By Daniel Vaughan | Apr 2014